Slacking off…again

I feel like, sometimes, I take a visit to my blog and realise I haven’t posted anything in a while. Either through laziness or forgetfulness. Not because I don’t want to; let’s face it, I usually have a lot to say on a variety of subjects 🙂

This time, I’ll put it down to a combination of both the aforementioned excuses as well as the old “life gets in the way sometimes” adage.

Life hasn’t been going so well these past few months, (reasons I won’t go into), I’m battling another bout of depression which has severely depleted most of my motivation and I simply don’t know what to do with myself.

I’ve made a return to AmDram after being completely absent from it for almost a year but it was still hard making myself go. I am glad I did though. I’m looking forward to being involved in something with likeminded people. It’s fun and it certainly takes my mind off things.

The one positive, I guess; is that I have finally made my submission queries to literary agents (yay!).

But wow, that’s a whole other ball game!

You can’t just submit your manscript and cover letter to every agent you can think of. Different agents represent different genres and types of writers. They all have a very specific idea of what they want. Also, the submission requirement itself varies a great deal. From agents who want a brief synopsis and the first 10,000 words to those who want a two page synopsis, the first three chapters and a cover letter with a sales pitch. There definitely is no “one size fits all” scenario. Submitting to just three agents, I found, could take up most of a morning.

I have targeted a group of agents from the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook 2018 and narrowed them down into two groups. First and second choice. First choice agents are those whose entry jumped off the page at me, the second choice are those where the entries really don’t give much away. What I have found out however, is that a lot of my second choices are those agents with some rather successful clients on their roster.

It’s not enough just to go by the book though. From there, I visited the websites, read the agent bios, looked at the authors and books being represented, then decided if I should send my manuscript. I’ve had to adapt everything depending on the requirements with those agents so I hope I’ve done everything right.

I have had three rejections so far. Two written and one non-response (their threshold was 4 weeks). My first rejection came back within a week of submitting (I have no idea if that means they were initially interested) and one was from JK Rowling’s agent (I knew that one would be a long shot!) The responses so far have been polite and pleasant, I’m grateful for that because I know there are agents out there who can be very derisive.

So, all that remains now is for me to wait for further responses (or not, as the case maybe) but I am working on my second WIP at the moment. Still untitled but it’s coming along quite nicely.